Nov 20 2016 Mark 9-10 Stop Settling! Make Your Ambition the Same as Jesus'

Lord, thank You for Your love for us – that You reign in our hearts and lives. In every way, we can know that our lives are under Your control and that You will take care of us and that nothing is going to happen in our lives that You are not deeply and completely aware of and using to make us the people You want us to be. We want to be humble before You – that we are not where we need to be yet. Help us to hear from You.
Mark 9: 35 Sitting down, He called the twelve and *said to them, “If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.”
This is in context – the disciples are traveling and come into a home – and the disciples, while traveling, argue about who is the greatest. Jesus overhears – and this is the context of these words. We all do this – we try to size everything up – to put people in categories – who is here or there – and it happens in sports – but we do it in everything.
What He is trying to do is to tell them what true greatness is – due to our natural tendency. He is not saying that greatness is bad – but that they have a wrong view of it. The whole world opposes God – it started in the Garden – but for the disciples, there is this perspective on greatness that is formed by the cultural view. What I would say – living here in the US of A – that is true of us, there is such an emphasis placed on it.
In saying that – let me say, it is not wrong to be ambitious, to want to achieve – to want to be great – IF – we understand greatness the way that Jesus understood greatness. Once you get that right – by all means, be great! In a nation built by overachievers, it is difficult to see the difference. We worship accomplishment. Movie stars/ athletes, politics, - and there are some whose religion is Apple.
Jesus says – you wanna be first? Be last!
If you don’t like it – deal with Him! If you want to be great, be the servant of all.
Instead of thinking – how can I get ahead, think, how can I get behind others and push them ahead? If you want to be great, instead of thinking – how do I get my way – think, How do I help others get their way? How do I make others’ lives better? In doing this – you will be better. You will be more fulfilled. In the business world, how do people succeed? By making those below them successful. Unfortunately – most use others to make themselves successful.
Sidebar: When we talk about this – being a servant – not trying to be great – it can be easy to spiritually settle – and that is not good either. Jesus is not saying it is wrong to try to achieve – but our ambition cannot be formed by our world and culture – but by how He forms it. I encourage you to be ambitious to advance God’s kingdom and God’s work as much as possible. That should be our desire – to achieve, for God’s glory – so that He might be honored in our lives.
First – to achieve or be ambitious to influence others to come to Christ. We should all be ambitious for that – it should be something we are longing for, working towards, and getting better at: Helping others to come to Christ and grow in relationship with Him.
It should be on our hearts – you know, how you want, someday, for the Browns to win? We should have the same desire that people come to Christ.
I am doing this thing – you can do this too – Pray4EveryHome.com – it is a database of homes around your area – and you get a list of the 500 homes closest to yours. If you own or rent a home – your name is everywhere! Every morning – I get an email – and I go through the 100 people around the church – they give you five names every day – it is a simple thing.
As you do it – you find yourself – praying for these people – and maybe you see them – and you think – I prayed for that person – you can tell them or not. It will help you to get to know some of your neighbors.
Second – overcoming long-term personal struggles. We settle for things we struggle with. Don’t settle. Always strive for transformation. Always seek to change. It is okay for significant changes to take place in your character even when you are ninety years old. We should always be seeking to be more like Jesus. But it is easy for us to stop. We think – I’ve done enough… I’m pretty close…. – but you know what – you are probably not on the same block or the same zip code – we’re on a different world.
Don’t settle for our involvement in ministry – using our spiritual gifts or using our natural gifts. We should always be striving to use God’s gift in our lives. In Church Unique – we discovered that we have a lot of people who serve – if you put it all together – probably 70 to 80 percent of our people serve. That is phenomenal – any church would long for that. We serve willingly and voluntarily to keep the church going. And we should do that. But it tells me that many of you have areas of giftedness that are not being used – and we need to figure out how to connect that with God’s kingdom. God would want you to use that in His kingdom.
Fourth – Don’t settle in relationships. Think about marriage – should a marriage ever get to the point where we stop growing in relationships? NOOOOO! But in reality – no one wants a BAD marriage relationship – but we just kind of stop. We stop growing. And Cindy would tell you that I am just as guilty as anyone. Same thing with family – in a kingdom ministry context at church – engaging in new relationships. We should all be doing that. We all know people who are good at that – but we can all do some level at that.
Fifth – we can never settle with where we are as a church. I was talking with someone this week – and they said this – I love our church – it is a great church – but it still needs to grow and go forward! I say – amen and amen. We think because we love our church that we would want it to stay the same.
If you love our church, guess what? Other people will too! For the same reasons you do!
Mark –
9: 36 Taking a child, He set him before them, and taking him in His arms, He said to them, 37 “Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me.”
Jesus brings a child. In their culture – very different from ours – this most likely means – BABIES – and children were of very low status in their culture. If you receive – whoever welcomes or receives one of these welcomes or receives me. He is talking about taking someone in of low status. To welcome a child for them would be for them to lower their own status – their own greatness quotient. They would be putting themselves down. The culture was 'seek to get ahead' – and by welcoming someone of lower status, you risk lowering your own status. We think this is bizarre – to welcome babies in – but they risked jeopardizing their income – their position. I've been watching this series on Segregation on PBS - Think of a time before Civil Rights - consider a white prosperous business in the South welcoming Blacks - they could have lost their business. That is what this is like. For Jesus, connecting with those of low status is a way of advancing the kingdom.
Mark 10: 13 And they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them.
The disciples rebuked Him? We are thinking WHAAAAT? We live in a child-centric world. But that is not their world. We look at this and think – this is the perfect Kodak moment – Jesus holding and blessing the babies! Our politicians go and kiss babies – and I feel bad for the babies. When the Pope was here – this woman with her baby broke through the security barrier – and the Pope reached out and blessed that baby. Disciples –this could have been the perfect media moment!
Our challenge – forget about babies and think about – who is that for us? Who are the low-status vulnerable people for you – and Jesus is saying – welcome them! I have no problem welcoming babies – but I might have problems welcoming other types of people
Mark 10: 14 But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, “Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
Indignant! Angry – it only took them two paragraphs to forget that whoever welcomes these is welcoming Jesus! These guys are thick headed!
They were trapped in their culture, and so are we! We allow the world to determine our values. We live in a culture of fear and divisiveness, and we have allowed the world to affect us in this. We live in fear and divisiveness – and that has nothing to do with Jesus. If Jesus were walking this earth in the city – he would not have any fear. So don’t be too hard on the disciples – we are just looking in the mirror.
Mark 10: 14 But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, “Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
He turns it from the world’s way to the kingdom way. That is what matters. Turn the focus away from the world and turn it to the kingdom. And then He takes it a step further:
Mark 10:15 Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” 16 And He took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands on them.
When we think – because of our culture – that to receive it like a child would be in innocence and cuteness. It is about helplessness. Complete need. Insignificance – total dependence on someone else. We only receive the kingdom when we way we can’t do it at all – but we need Jesus.
Blessed are the poor in Spirit. We think that is a good thing. They did not see themselves as those in spiritual poverty. I think a way to look at it would be this.
Blessed are those who have really low self-esteem – who have a bad self-image. None of us would say that, right? But in His context, no one would say – blessed are the poor in spirit.
With everything going on in our world – in one sense, it is so much fun to say – WOW! We can be so entirely different! I am loving that! We live in the perfect time for the church to be the church – and for the entire world to say – Oh, they are nothing like us! They are wholly different – holy in every way. And I would hope that we would just want that – to say – this is what it means to live like Jesus. Go through the Beatitudes – blessed are those who mourn – those who are dealing with great loss – we can’t just push it under the rug – the way we think is different – and different from the way we need to think.
When we think of the kingdom – I’ll close with this – a couple things to think about.
The kingdom is built on the weak, vulnerable and helpless. In our culture, we have tried to build it on the powerful and great, and that is why the kingdom is not advancing.
Second – children are to be a part of the kingdom – that needs to be a significant emphasis for all of us – regardless of whether our children are here, or grown and gone – we should see this as crucial to the advancement for the kingdom of God.
We need to press to grow our church in young families – and they come in all shapes and sizes – and then – as Jesus closes this section – He blesses the children.
God blesses us based on His mercy and our need – not on our worthiness. We all say this – We are saved by grace through faith – we all know that – but once you get there – you better believe you ought to be blessed by what you are doing – by your worthiness. But you will never be blessed because of your worthiness.
Dallas Willard - Grace is not opposed to effort. It is always opposed to EARNING.
Let’s pray – Lord, thank You – I pray that You would help our church to be a place for children – and for the weak and vulnerable